Video: Understanding the audience

(Music playing.) Brooke Embry: So this project was for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. Really what they were trying to do is show the connectivity of the Gulf of Mexico in terms of all these different constituents. What they were trying to do again is establish the Gulf of Mexico as a marine sanctuary. So protect the area, set rules around what people could and couldn't do, again, from recreation to oil industry.

Duarte Design is on a mission to change the world, one PowerPoint presentation at a time. Nancy and Mark Duarte, the wife-and-husband team behind Al Gore's famous slideshow about global warming, have built a thriving business out of creating high-impact PowerPoint and Keynote presentations. Their company has become the go-to presentation resource for some of high technology's most visible companies, such as Adobe, Cisco, and HP. But Nancy will be the first to tell you that it's not the technology that matters most, but rather the story. This installment of Creative Inspirations tells the story of how this power duo elevated lowly PowerPoint presentations to arguably the most compelling form of modern media.

Understanding the audience

(Music playing.)Brooke Embry: So this project was for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.Really what they were trying to do is show the connectivity of the Gulf of Mexicoin terms of all these different constituents.What they were trying to do again is establish the Gulf of Mexico as a marine sanctuary.So protect the area, set rules around what people could and couldn't do, again,from recreation to oil industry.

So it's really setting those boundaries, preserving this area and what theywant to do is present this to White House and really have this be kind of thenext big environmental stance for the White House to take.So that was really their plug and their pull for what they were trying to dowith this presentation.So what we would like to do is kind of walk through it a little bit, showsome of the real interesting pieces, and why we took the direction that we did for this.So they have this entire library of assets, which we were really excited about.We are like, great, we are going to be able to handpick these beautiful, kind ofNational Geographic type images is what we thought.

It turned out that they did have a lot of great images, but the resolutionwasn't always great.Sometimes the tone of the color of the picture was either kind of on the yellow side, so we didn't really want to use it.So it did pose a little bit of a challenge.It gave us great ideas in what we wanted to do with the photos, but then we kindof had to go out on our own and source the photos to have this continuitybetween the look and feel of the whole presentation.So again, great for generating ideas, but unfortunately we weren't able to use alot of the assets that they provided us.

Michael Moon: Yeah. The funny thing about that is, is once we figured out what the story was,we realized that we didn't have a lot of the assets that we needed to tell it.They had, despite their mountains and mountains of stuff, nothing that was goingto really connect them back to their audience.Of course, they had these great pictures of sea turtles and coral reefs and allof this other stuff, but you can only put so much of that stuff up on screenbefore it gets old, and it's kind of like, well, tell me what this means to me.That's really where we started out with the process.What was interesting to us was, in their formulation of this, they almostcompletely neglected their audience.

They didn't think about, okay, if I have to go to the White House orthe administration and talk to these sorts of people, who am I really talking to, right?If my audience is politicians, what do the politicians really care about? Constituents.I mean their goal is to get reelected.So just by talking about sea turtles isn't going to do that, becausesea turtles don't vote.You have got to think about all the people that this marine sanctuary couldpossibly affect and there's a lot of interest down in the Gulf.So pulling those interests out and identifying those things and saying, if youare going to go out and you are going to talk to oil and gas folks, if you aregoing to go talk to the scientists, or if you are going to go talk to theenvironmentalists, if you are going to go talk to the people who make a living onthe shrimp boats down in the Gulf, those are the stories that you need to tell.

You have got to give them a reason to believe that what you are doing is goingto ultimately benefit them in the future.At the end of the day, it all comes together to say, hey, can't we all just get along?We are a lot of different people, a lot of different constituents, we have our owninterests, but can we find the happy medium that benefits all of us?That was really what I would call the thesis statement of this presentation at the end.How do we tell a story that says, you know what, everyone is going to supportthis move, and that's why it's a politically safe thing for you to go do.

It helps bring that call to action home, when you can't really object to it,because you kind of scratch your head and you go, yeah, I guess that doesmake sense to everybody.Everyone will get behind this.So what we ended up doing was talking to all these constituencies out here.So we have got everyone from the scientists and the environmentalists, who areout there trying to preserve nature, to the merchant marines who are going outand capturing shrimp.Then of course you have got tourists, and you have got people who just like togo out and enjoy the Gulf for the sport fishing and snorkeling and everythingelse that goes along with it.

So we thought that if we could tell the stories from their perspectives, that itwould be a little bit more resident for the people who are finally going tolisten to this thing and go, you know what, everyone has got interests here inthe Gulf, in preserving and making sure that it's going to return the oil and gas, it's going to return the fishery sources, it's going to just provide for adecent Saturday afternoon.It makes the story a little bit more real.Brooke Embry: Well, again, the one thing about this is that these are actually the real people.These aren't stock photos.So that kind of brings the power and brings the authenticity of the presentationof what they are trying to do.

What was really effective too is, Michael kind of alluded to it, but he reallypresented this back to the client.So we didn't just kick over a file and say, here you go, what do you think?It was let's get either on a phone call or meet face-to-face, we will presentyour presentation to you, and treat you like you are the audience.So you feel the full experience of it and then go through any feedback ordiscussions, what worked, what didn't work, what really resonated, so it'streating it like the client is the live audience.

It was just really, really effective.Upfront we even offered training.We are like hey, if you guys want us to come in, meet with the five people thatwill probably use this presentation the most, we can give them a little coachingon how to present this file.They didn't go with that, but you know what, they were super thankful that we offered.Michael Moon: Honestly, it's a fun process, because we do this stuff so naturally, because wedo it on a day-to-day basis, but most people who get up there with your standardPowerPoint or other presentation software or something, don't really think aboutthe presentation that way.So if you can present to them what your vision for it should be and have thecadence and have the presence on stage and let people really experience that,a very interesting point happens in the process, where they make it their own.

They take it and they go, okay, you can take the training wheels off now, I amready for this, and now I am going to go do it.They become much better presenters because of that process.

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